Today, many electronic devices and systems require a form of user authentication. For example, in a payment system, a smart card may be used to initiate a payment and to authenticate a user. In addition to conventional user authentication via a personal identification number (PIN), a smart card may also include a fingerprint sensor for capturing the user's fingerprint. In that case, the captured fingerprint may be used to ascertain that the smart card is presented to a terminal by its rightful owner, for example. The captured fingerprint may be verified against a reference fingerprint image by the smart card itself, for example by a secure element integrated in said smart card. However, a verification of this kind may require a significant amount of computational resources. The same is true when a fingerprint is captured and verified by another device, for example a mobile phone, a tablet or a terminal. In that case, the verification of the captured fingerprint may also be performed by an embedded secure element.